Sleeping Beauties: A Novel
Page 61
“What’s that thing?” asked May, pointing to a shiny black square of plastic above the bazooka’s trigger housing.
“Dunno,” Fritz said, peering at it. “Some kind of inventory control for the bean-counters, most likely.”
“It’s got words in English on it,” May said.
Fritz shrugged. “So what? I got a John Deere cap with Chinese shit on the tag inside. Everybody sells everything to anyone. Thanks to the Jews, that’s just the way the world works. The Jews, they—”
“Never you mind the damn Jews,” Little Low said. If he let Fritz get on a roll about the Jews, he’d shortly be on to the federal government, and they’d be hunkered around this fucking hole in the floor for the rest of the spring. “All I care about is does it work. If it don’t, tell me now, lest we come back here and tear off your ballsack.”
“I think we should tear off his ballsack, anyhow, Low,” May said. “That’s what I think. I bet it’s small.”
“It works, it works,” Fritz said, presumably talking about the bazooka rather than his ballsack. “Now let loose of me, you scum.”
“Got a mouth on him, don’t he, brother?” Maynard observed.
“Yes,” Little Low said. “Yes he does. But we’ll forgive him this time. Get a couple of those grease-guns.”
“Those ain’t grease-guns,” Fritz said indignantly. “Those’re fully automatic army—”
“It’d suit me fine if you shut up,” Low said, “and what suits me is going to suit you. We’re going now, but if this bazooka of yours don’t work, we will return and make it disappear up your saggy ass all the way to the trigger housing.”
“Yessir, what he said!” May exclaimed. “Try shittin after takin a load like that!”
“What are you going to do with my boom-tube?”
Little Low Griner smiled gently. “Hush, now,” he said, “and don’t worry about what don’t concern you.”
2
From a hilltop a quarter of a mile away, Van Lampley observed the Silverado pull into Fritz Meshaum’s scabrous dooryard. She observed the Griners get out and return to their stolen truck a few minutes later, carrying stuff—no doubt more stolen goods—which they put in the truckbed. Then they took off again, once more in the direction of Dooling. She considered pulling into Meshaum’s place once they left, but in her current state, she felt incapable of asking any questions that would make sense. And really, did she have to? Everyone in Dooling knew that Fritz Meshaum was in love with anything that had a trigger and went bang. The Griner brothers had stopped to gun up. It was as plain as the nose on her face.
Well, she had a gun herself, her good old .30-.06. Probably not much of a shake compared to what was now in the bed of that stolen truck, but so what? Did she really have anything to lose that she hadn’t been planning, just an hour ago, to give away to the universe?
“Want to mess with me, boys?” Van said, keying the ATV and revving it (a mistake, as she had never bothered to check how much gas was in the Suzuki’s tank before setting out). “Well, why don’t we see just who messes with who?”
3
The Griners had listened to their scanner only off and on during their days at the cabin, but they did so constantly on the trip to town, because the police band had gone crazy. The transmissions and crosstalk meant little to Maynard, whose brains rarely got out of first gear, but Lowell picked up the general drift.
Someone—a bunch of someones, actually—had taken a mess of guns from the armory at the sheriff’s station, and the cops were just as mad as hornets in a shook-up nest. At least two of the gun-robbers had been killed, a cop had also been killed, and the rest of the gang had gotten away in a big RV. They had taken the stolen guns up to the women’s prison. The cops also kept talking about some woman they wanted to pull out of the Ho Hotel, and it seemed like the gun-robbers wanted to keep her for themselves. Low couldn’t follow that part. He didn’t much care, either. What he cared about was the cops had raised up a posse and were preparing for a big fight, maybe starting tomorrow morning, and they planned to rendezvous at the intersection of Route 31 and West Lavin Road. That meant the station would be undefended. It also gave Lowell a brilliant idea about how they might be able to nail Kitty McDavid.
“Low?”
“Yes, brother?”
“I can’t make out from all that bibble-babble who’s in charge. Some say Deputy Coombs took over from the Norcross bitch, and some say a fella named Frank. Who’s Frank?”
“Don’t know and don’t care,” Little Low said. “But when we get into town, you keep an eye peeled for a kid by himself.”
“Which kid, brother?”
“One old enough to ride a bike and carry a tale,” said Low, just as the stolen Silverado passed the sign reading WELCOME TO DOOLING, A NICE PLACE TO RAISE YOUR FAMILY.
4
The Suzuki ATV could do sixty on the open road, but with night coming down and her reflexes shot to perdition, Van dared no more than forty. By the time she passed the WELCOME TO DOOLING sign, the Silverado containing the Griner brothers had disappeared. Maybe she’d lost them, but maybe not. Main Street was nearly deserted, and she hoped to spot it there, either parked or cruising slowly while those bad boys looked for something worth holding up. If she didn’t spot it, she supposed the best she could do was pop into the sheriff’s station and report them to whoever was on duty. That would be sort of an anticlimax for a woman who was hoping to do something good to make up for a shooting she still felt bad about, but it was like her daddy always said—sometimes you get what you want, but mostly you get what you get.
The beginning of downtown proper was marked by Barb’s Beauty Salon and Hot Nails on one side of the road and Ace Hardware (recently visited by Johnny Lee Kronsky, in search of tools, wires, and batteries) on the other. It was between these two fine business establishments that Vanessa’s ATV chugged twice, backfired, and died. She checked the gauge, and saw the needle resting on E. Wasn’t that just the perfect end to a perfect fucking day?
There was a Zoney’s one block up where she could buy a few gallons of gas, assuming anyone was bothering to run the place. But it was getting dark, those damn Griners could be anywhere, and even walking a block seemed like quite a trek in her current state. It might be better to go ahead and end it, as she’d set out to do earlier . . . except she hadn’t become a statewide arm-wrestling champion by giving up when the going got tough, had she? And wasn’t that what she was thinking of? Giving up?
“Not until my damn hand’s down on the damn table,” Van told her beached ATV, and began plodding up the deserted sidewalk toward the sheriff’s.
5
The business directly across from the cop-shop was the Drew T. Barry Indemnity Company, proprietor currently out at West Lavin Road with the rest of the posse. Low parked the Silverado behind it in a space marked RESERVED FOR BARRY EMPLOYEE, ALL OTHERS WILL BE TOWED. The back door was locked, but two slams of May’s beefy shoulder fixed that. Low followed him inside, dragging the kid they had found riding his bike down by the bowling alley. The kid in question happened to be Kent Daley, member of the high school tennis team and close friend of Eric Blass. Kent’s bike was now in the back of the Silverado. He was sniveling, although he was really too old for such behavior; it was Low’s opinion that sniveling was okay for teenage girls, but boys should start to taper off at ten and be done with it by twelve or so. He was willing to give this one a pass, however. After all, he probably thought he was going to be raped and murdered.
“You need to shut up, youngster,” he said. “You’ll be all right, if you behave.”
He frog-marched Kent into the big front room, which was filled with desks and posters telling how the right insurance policy could save your family from a life of poverty. On the front window, which faced the deserted business district, Drew T. Barry’s name was printed backward in tall gold-flake letters. As Low looked out, he saw a woman come slowly up the sidewalk on the other side. Not much of a looker, heavyset, lesb
o haircut, but seeing any woman today was a rarity. She glanced at the Barry establishment, but with no lights inside, could see nothing but the reflection of the streetlights, which had just flicked on. She climbed the steps to the cop-shop and tried the door. Locked, and wasn’t that smalltown police for you? Low thought. Lock the front door after the guns are stolen. Now she was trying the intercom.
“Mister?” Kent whined. “I want to go home. You can have my bike, if you want it.”
“We can have anything we want, you pimply little peckerwood,” May said.
Low twisted the boy’s wrist, making him holler. “What part of shut up don’t you understand? Brother, go get Mr. Bazooky. And the shells.”
May left. Low turned to the kid. “Card in your wallet says your name is Kent Daley and you live at 15 Juniper Street. That right?”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said, wiping snot from his nose up one cheek with the heel of his hand. “Kent Daley, and I don’t want any trouble. I want to go home.”
“You’re in a real pickle, Kent. My brother is an awful sick man. There is nothing he loves more than to wreck a human being. What’d you do, caused you to be so unlucky, do you suppose?”
Kent licked his lips and blinked rapidly. He opened his mouth and shut it.
“You did something, all right.” Low laughed; guilt was hilarious. “Who’s at home?”
“My dad and my mom. Only my mom’s, you know . . .”
“Catchin forty winks, is she? Or four hundred and forty?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But your dad’s fine?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Would you like me to go to 15 Juniper Street and blow your dad’s fuckin head off?”
“No, sir,” Kent whispered. Tears rolled down his pale cheeks.
“No, course you wouldn’t, but I will, unless you do just as I say. Will you do as I say?”
“Yes, sir.” Not even a whisper now, just a breeze through the boy’s lips.
“How old are you, Kent?”
“Suh-Suh-Seventeen.”
“Jesus, almost old enough to vote and grizzling like a baby. Quit on it.”
Kent did his best.
“Ride that bike pretty fast, can you?”
“I guess so. I won the Tri-County 40K last year.”
Little Low didn’t know a 40K from a serving tray, and didn’t care. “You know where Route 31 meets up with West Lavin Road? The road that goes to the prison?”
Maynard had returned with the bazooka and the case of shells. Across the street, the heavyset woman had given up on the intercom and was heading back the way she had come with her head hanging down. The drizzle had ceased at last.
Low gave Kent, who was staring at the bazooka with dreadful fascination, a shake. “Know that road, do you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. There are a bunch of men up there and I’m going to give you a message. You will give it to the one named Terry, or the one named Frank, or both of them. Now listen.”
6
Terry and Frank were at that moment getting out of Unit One and approaching the double gates of Dooling Correctional, where Clint and another guy stood waiting for them. Ten members of the posse were back at the intersection; the rest had taken up positions around the prison at what Terry called the compass rose: north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, and northwest. There were woods, and they were damp, but none of the guys seemed to mind. They were high on excitement.
And they’ll stay that way until the first one takes a bullet and starts screaming, Terry thought.
Someone’s tricked-out truck was blocking the inner gate. The dead space had been filled with tires. And soaked in gasoline, from the smell. Not a bad move. Terry could almost admire it. He shone his light on Norcross, then on the bearded man standing next to him.
“Willy Burke,” said Terry. “I’m sorry to see you here.”
“And I’m sorry to see you here,” Willy responded. “Doing what you shouldn’t be doing. Overstepping your authority. Playing the vigilante man.” He took his pipe from the pocket of his biballs and started to load it.
Terry had never been sure if Norcross was a doctor or just a mister, so he settled on his given name. “Clint, this has almost gone beyond talking. One of my deputies has been killed. Vern Rangle. I think you knew him.”
Clint sighed and shook his head. “I did, and I’m sorry. He was a fine man. I hope you feel equally sorry about Garth Flickinger and Gerda Holden.”
“The Holden girl’s death was an act of self-defense,” Frank said. “She was ripping Deputy Rangle’s goddam throat out.”
“I want to talk to Barry Holden,” Clint said.
“He’s dead,” Frank said. “And it’s your fault.”
Terry turned to Frank. “You need to let me handle this.”
Frank raised his hands and stepped back. He knew Coombs was right—there was his damn temper, getting the best of him again—but he hated him for it, just the same. What he felt like doing was climbing that fence, barbed wire rolls at the top be damned, and knocking the heads of those two smug sons of bitches together. Evie Black’s goading voice was still in his head.
“Clint, listen to me,” Terry said. “I’m willing to say there’s blame on both sides, and I’m willing to guarantee that no charges will be brought against any of you here if you let me take the woman into custody now.”
“Is Barry really dead?” Clint asked.
“Yes,” the acting sheriff said. “He attacked Vern, too.”
Willy Burke reached over and gripped Clint’s shoulder.
“Let’s talk about Evie,” Clint said. “What exactly do you plan to do with her? What can you do?”
Terry appeared stumped, but Frank was ready, speaking with assurance. “We’re going to take her to the sheriff’s station. While Terry’s questioning her, I’m going to get a team of doctors from the state hospital down here double-quick. Between the cops and the docs, we’re going to find out what she is, what she did to the women, and whether or not she can fix it.”
“She says she did nothing,” Clint said, staring off into the distance. “She says she’s just an emissary.”
Frank turned to Terry. “You know what? I think this man is totally full of shit.”
Terry gave him a reproachful (if slightly red-eyed) look; Frank once again raised his hands and stepped back.
“You don’t have a single medical doctor in there,” Terry said, “and you don’t have any PAs you can call, because I seem to remember that they’re both women and they’ll be in cocoons by now. So, bottom line, you’re not examining her, you’re just holding her—”
“Holding onto her,” Frank growled.
“—and listening to what she tells you—”
“Swallowing it, you mean!” Frank shouted.
“Be quiet, Frank.” Terry spoke mildly, but when he turned back to Clint and Willy his cheeks were flushed. “But he’s right. You’re swallowing it. Drinking the Kool-Aid, so to speak.”
“You don’t understand,” Clint said. He sounded weary. “She’s not a woman at all, at least not in the sense we understand. I don’t think she’s entirely human. She has certain abilities. She can call rats, that much I’m sure of. They do what she wants. It’s how she got Hicks’s cell phone. All those moths people have been seeing around town have something to do with her, too, and she knows things. Things she can’t know.”
“You saying she’s a witch?” Terry asked. He pulled out the flask and had a sip. Probably not the best way to negotiate, but he needed something, and right now. “Come on, Clint. Next you’ll be telling me she can walk on water.”
Frank thought of the fire spinning in the air in his living room, and then exploding into moths; and of the phone call, Evie Black saying that she had seen him protect Nana. He tightened his arms across his chest, squeezing down his anger. What did it matter what Eve Black was? What mattered was what had happened, was happening, and how to fix it.
Because Terry could think of no adequate reply, he took another drink. He saw the way Clint was looking at him and had a third, just to spite the bastard. Who was he to judge, hiding behind prison walls while Terry tried to hold the rest of the world together?
“What she’s asked for is a few more days,” Clint said, “and that’s what I want you to give her.” He nailed Terry’s eyes with his own. “She’s expecting bloodshed, she’s made that much clear. Because she believes that’s the only way men know how to solve their problems. Let’s not give her what she expects. Stand down. Give it seventy-two hours. Then we can revisit the situation.”
“Really? And what do you think will change?” The liquor hadn’t taken over Terry’s mind yet, so far it was only visiting, and he thought, almost prayed: Give me an answer I can believe in.
But Clint only shook his head. “I don’t know. She says it’s not entirely in her hands. But seventy-two hours without shooting would be the right first step, of that I’m sure. Oh, and she says that the women have to take a vote.”
Terry nearly laughed. “How the fuck are sleeping women going to do that?”
“I don’t know,” Clint said.
He’s playing for time, Frank thought. Spouting any old made-up thing that comes into his shrinky-dink brain. Surely you’re still sober enough to see that, aren’t you, Terry?
“I need to think it over,” Terry said.
“All right, but you need to think clearly, so do yourself a favor and pour the rest of that liquor out on the ground.” His eyes shifted to Frank, and they were the cold ones of the orphan boy who had fought for milkshakes. “Frank here thinks he’s the solution, but I think he’s the problem. I think she knew there’d be a guy like him. I think she knows there always is.”